Each line, then, is another customer who isn’t giving their business to a competitor. Why do these companies offer family plan benefits? “For carriers, it’s about the lock-in of having multiple people giving them business, even if they’re losing a few dollars compared to what they’d make if everyone had an individual plan,” explains Chris Welch, an editor at The Verge. Nearly everyone I spoke to cited this as one of the main reasons they were still on their parents’ phone bill. The easiest answer here is that in most cases, for those using one of the four major phone carriers - Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile - having multiple phone lines on a single bill makes the entire bill cheaper than if every user had their own individual line. Why phone companies make it easier for millennials to mooch Some were obvious (it’s cheaper for everyone to have multiple lines on a single bill), but others weren’t - like the multiple women who described the desire to pay their phone bill as their parents still wanting to see them as “their little girl.” Others (myself included) didn’t even know much their phone bill cost their parents, while some were actively trying to get off the family plan and cut the final cord. Over the course of speaking to 18 financially independent millennials between the ages of 22 and 36 who are still on their parents’ phone plan, it became clear that even though people’s individual reasonings differed somewhat, the same themes kept bubbling up. In 2017, Mel Magazine came to the same conclusion.

It’s also a perennial topic - back in 2015, Slate declared that it was totally fine to remain on your parents’ phone plan as a 20-something, while in 2016 NerdWallet conducted a study that proved the practice actually saved everyone money. And in nearly all cases, people were well aware of the privilege they had in having a family who could afford to foot the bill. For some in financially precarious situations, it’s a lifesaver. A 2015 issue of Glamour declared that it was “umm, not ok if you’re 26 and your parents still pay your cell phone bill.” But according to many actual 26-year-olds, it’s more than fine.

This provides a very useful point for anyone attempting to argue that millennials are uniquely lazy. And despite the fact that they’ve moved on in other ways - covering their own bills, paying off student loans, contributing to retirement accounts, getting married, even having children - both parents and the adult children whose data usage they’re paying for are reluctant to change the status quo.

Today, tons of adults in their 20s and 30s - around 53 percent, according to one study - still linger on the same cellphone plans they’ve been on since high school or middle school, the ones their parents signed up for in the 2000s when kids and teens owning personal cellphones became standard. But even if I were getting married tomorrow, I wouldn’t be the only millennial who has achieved many of the markers of financial independence yet still enjoys the benefits of their parents’ phone plan. And so over Thanksgiving, I struck a deal: Because my older sister had stayed on my parents’ plan until she got married, I decided that the same should be true for me.įortunately, that will not be happening for a long while. It’s more like a running joke, if we define the word “joke” as “a fact that is mostly neutral.”īut while I do feel a bit guilty about this - I could theoretically afford it if I had to - I absolutely dread the day I’m told to go down to the Verizon store and get a plan of my own. It’s not really a point of contention, and never is my tenuous status on the Jennings Verizon family plan actually in jeopardy. Nearly every time I’ve visited home over the past few years, the same subject is brought up: the fact that my dad still pays my phone bill.

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